This has been debated several times over the past few years. The majority of Michigan Alums do not consider moo u a rival. They could care less if the transferred to the MAC. The casual Michigan fan believes moo u is a rival along with ohio. So it is a matter of perspective.

I do not believe moo u is a rival. I think a school can have only one rival and a little brother.

To say you can only have one rival defies all logic. The fact that you call them little brother and that Hoke has a clock up counting down to that game should speak volumes about whether it is a rival or not. Certainly not the same as Ohio, but still a rival. I seriously question the statement that "the majority of Michigan Alums do not consider moo u a rival." I honestly don't know one person I went to school with that would agree with that statement.

opinion. Bo had his opinion and I have mine. Bo did not want to play ND either, but I like playing against ND. Bo only wanted to play noon games. I like night games and so do over 110,000 people that went to the first ever night game two years ago.

Probably agree more ith Bo than you. And while it's equally non-quantifiable as what you claim as a statistical fact, it's more likely.

So what happened, did a Spartan steal your bike as a kid? Were you scared by Sparty as a baby? Because for someone you don't consider a rival, you spend a lot of time heaping disdain on them. If they really weren't a rival, you wouldn't care about them. You'd treat them like Purdue. Methinks you doth protest too much.

That is just crazy-talk. I had told the story before about my connection to moo u. I could care less about them.

But the fact remains that most Alums (notwithstanding sample size) do not think moo u is a rival. The number gets better for those that live out of state. The majority of casual Michigan fans that live in the State of Michigan thinks it is a rival. Everyone has an opinion, no biggie.

however as a Michigan resident and dad of three somewhat invested in the Michigan Education Trust (prepaid college tuition) my fellow-Michigan-Alum-wife reminds me to tone down the Sparty bashing because there's a good chance one of them will end up there.

Neither of my kids would even apply to MSU as a backup plan, both chose GVSU as a backup - which is nipping at MSU's heals academically speaking. One of my kids is at Michigan after a year at GVSU and the other will be at either Michigan or GVSU this fall. So feel free to bash away!

That's like saying MSU is nipping at M's "heels" academically. MSU is a top 75 National Institution. In a vacuum MSU is a good/great school. When you have a one of the best (top 20?) schools in the country less than an hour away I can see how it is overshadowed.

GVSU is #35 in Midwest regional schools. Behind Kettering, Mercy and M Dearborn to name a few.

Depending on your major or desired college experience, GVSU may be the right choice over MSU. GVSU is a fine school in a nice area. I, along with most rankings, would disagree that MSU and GVSU are on the same level.

EMU, absolutely. Sometimes I daydream, what if we could "make" the guys who won't pan out at Michigan play there. Or just the guys who haven't played much (Wilkins, Jones, etc.) how good would they be?

Anyway. To answer the OP question...NO.

However, I found MSU a lot more tolerable pre-Dantonio. I hate them just as much as Ohio now because of Dantonio. Before him, Ohio was always on another level of hate (at least in football...maybe not basketball).

"6 weeks 2 days ago I sat next to a DAMN attractive hot blonde
and her friend, got her number after and I'm going out for drinks with her on Friday. This was in my opinion a good move to go see this. To get ass you got to show class lol jk but seriously I don't regret it at all. Her name is Nicole btw and goes to Ohio U. So yeah. Neg me all you want in the end I won :p"

I have been a lifelong Michigan fan. My parents raised me the right way, hate Ohio, hate the Domers, and hate Staeeee. I have tried to instill that same hatred for things not maize and blue in my own two sons. Having said that, I can see where he is coming from. I don't agree with it, but I can see it.

If you're not an alumni/student of either place, I'd say yes. I know plenty of rather serious sports fans who graduated from places like CMU who root for all the Michigan teams. A lot of people enjoy seeing the state of Michigan (or by extension the Big 10) do well against teams from other places, especially the south.

And not really a die hard fan of either team, but just a general sports fans. I mean if you have something like the NBA Ticket and live in the same city as your team, you obviously just like to watch the sport. But those Ames it's natural to root for someone. So if you like college football but went to Wayne State or something and have no family history you could just want to see te local teams do well. But again, you're not really a fan of the teams per se. Like the Chicagoian who roots for the Cubs and White Sox. Or a Jets and Giants fan. Sports fans, locl fans, but not fans of the team.

I don't think it's acceptable to be say a die-hard Michigan football fan and then a die-hard MSU basketball fan. But if you're a very casual sports fan and have no affiliation with either school, I don't see it as a big problem. It's the same reason most people root for the Lions, because it's close. I can understand someone that isn't terribly invested to just root for the Michigan teams.

But again, if you consider yourself a big sports fan, you can't just bandwagon your way to whatever makes it easier for you. That's not acceptable in my mind.

He is not a casual sports fan. He has been a die hard michigan sports fan his whole life. For example, he has always been a huge fan of the pistons, lions, tigers, and red wings, but could never choose between Michigan and State. Here is the problem: he argues he is not a bandwagon fan because he still roots for both teams even when they are not doing well.

Anyway, I know people that are the same way, and I don't really get it. I mean, I guess I can see not hating both schools (if you have no affiliation but have always lived in Michigan), but I feel like you still have to at least pick a team to get behind more so than the other.

But as long as we all hate Ohio State, then I guess at least we have common ground.

Anyone's sports preferences are completely arbitrary. Select your most pertinent facts and your team loyalties will follow naturally. For example, I cannot stand Tebow and therefore dislike the Jets as long as he plays for them. As soon as he leaves, my feelings towards that team will veer back towards neutrality over time. It can be something as random as the colleges more of the starters came from (assuming no fantasy football incentivization).

The Michigan connection and our human interactions have much more influence on our team loyalties than many realize. If I see some cutie in a Kentucky hat with a big smile walking my way, well, my comments and body language on Calipari or some other aspects of their program may become more admiring and impressed than skeptical and admonishing. If this friendship blossomed and we became good friends over time, my overall attitude towards UK might shift. It would have to be a very special sort of friendship to justify honestly diluting my loyalty in that way!

That said, I have seen cars with Michigan and Ohio State magnets, equally sized and equally prominent. Stranger team fusions are possible than Michigan and State.

No. There's this guy that I work with in a round about sort of way, who proudly proclaimed to a rather large group of people (mostly M fans) that he's a "Michigan fan" except for when they play MSU. I smh.

My nearly 80 yr old dad, lifelong Michigander and sports fan, would probably say something similar. He doesn't have a college degree, and if pressed would probably admit to a small preference for UM (probably in part because of my Sparty bro-in-law who can be the classic insufferable spartan fan), but he'll cheer pretty equally for both schools as the local teams. I was really raised the same way, and don't hate state teams anywhere near as much as I've learned to hate staee fans, though I absolutely bleed maize and blue.

I didn't even read your friends reasons for liking both schools. Yes, it is okay to be a fan of both schools.

However, I do not think he can call or consider himself a "die hard fan". IMO die hard fans have loyalty to a single program or school over an indefinite period of time regardless of whether or not the school goes into a losing slump.

On the other hand, your friend doesn't have to listen to anyone or have others confirm whether it is okay or acceptable to like both schools. A fan is a fan. As long as he continues to be a fan of both schools through thick and thin, that is his choice. To be fair, I would say the same to a person (if you could call them that) that considered themselves a fan of both Michigan and Ohio State.

Fair weather fans are the worst and the only kind of people I do not consider real sports fans at all. Anyone with half a brain can root for a team that is winning, and jump ship when things go south.

inter-galactically. You are correct. No one really cares about M.A.C except a few in-state people. I live in the State and I am a M Grad student and I could care less about them. They are not our rival.

Everyone else in the family went to Michigan, and she rooted for them too. But the rare time State won in football, she'd get this wry smirk on her face, and remind everyone that her master's was from there.

Is it an acceptable practice to be a fan of both Michigan and Michigan State?

Same sport? Maybe ... but I would temper the meaning of the word "fan" in that case. It certainly would not mean kind of intense loyalty expressed by many on this board. Anyone who claims that kind of intensity for two rivals in the same sport isn't being honest.

Different sports? More possible. My blood runs deep blue for Michigan football. The other sports I'm not nearly as interested in. That's just me. I have a mild interest in Michigan basketball or hockey and a casual interest in seeing Michigan State do well against other teams.

Now when it comes to Notre Dame ... I just hate them. Hate their liver and guts. All sports. All endeavors. All references to anything Notre Dame. Hate them.

Does he have memorabilia for both schools anywhere in his house or wear memorabilia for both schools? If so, that makes him a tool.

Maybe it's a little different since they're both in the state of Michigan, but this one guy I know roots for Michigan in football and Duke in basketball. He was trashing Michigan basketball the other day on twitter and a lot of people were asking him uhh what the hell you're a Michigan fan? He claims that since he has been that way since he was little it's okay. Uh no, it's not. When you aren't an alumnus of either school, pick one school and stick with it.

Dont be that guy! A guy I work with claims to be a die hard U of M fan until basketball season starts. Its easy to like the winning teams. As a die hard U of M fan, I dont have any respect for people like this. Die hard fans stay loyal through the good and bad times. I have all the respect for people who root for their team during the dark times.

I'm a die-hard Michigan fan too, but don't have the basketball knowledge and history because I'm a hockey guy. There's a segment of the Michigan fanbase that doesn't follow basketball until the Big Ten season starts up, or something like that. There's also a segment that doesn't care about hockey unless it's MSU week or a tournament, and that's alright too.

This whole hockey debacle is really casting a pall over enjoying this basketball season, for me. Just a year with a lot of feelings.

I didnt have a problem with watching MSU win in 2000. They are a team I would mind winning all the games exsept against Michigan. As long as we still finish better. The hate doesn't run deep like tOsu. I hate watching them win anything at all. I wouldnt mind tOsu losing for 10 years stright in every sport...State IS like the little brother you like to see do well once in a while.

I'm more of a casual baseball fan, so I enjoy taking in the games for both teams, and I'll go to games for both teams in the same season. Plus, considering how bad both teams usually are, its not like there is ever a bandwagon to hop on. But I never understood the pick one or the other mentality when it comes to the Cubs or Sox, or for that matter the Yankees/Mets. So, if the guy in question has no alumni ties to either school, then I can understand him liking both teams.

For me though, when it comes to college sports, it's only Michigan that gets my love, as I'm an alum. I can't ever root for Staee, or OSU, or ND. No matter what.

I grew up in the north burbs (deerfield/buffalo grove) so my dad took me to a lot of cubs games (6-8 a season) when I was younger because it was easier to get to than comiskey, but he would still take me to at least 1 sox game a year as well because he's a bigger sox fan than cubs fan, but he doesn't like going to that part of the city for games. now that im older and he's not as concerned about my safety, he's more comfy bringing me to sox games and I get tix from him to those more frequently than cubs games now. It also helps that he has a couple friends with sox season tickets, but his friend that used to be a cubs season tix holder stopped renewing his seats a couple years ago so we don't have that easy connection anymore. My dad won't get tickets to a game unless he feels the seats are good seats, he'd rather watch from home if he's not on the lower level of the venue close to the action. I've never sat higher than row 6 for a Hawks game with him, for example.

Tom Izzo built his entire reputation with the personnel he assembled through negative recruiting toward Michigan after the Ed Martin Debacle.

Mark Dantonio has made no secret of his hatred for Michigan.

Their fanbase has been intolerable since the internet became popular, and has escalated the bad feeling between the schools a lot, especially when their football team got their unprecedented winning streak against Michigan.

I dislike Ohio, and detest their cheating, but I still have a small amount of respect for them. OTOH, I have absolutely no respect for Michigan State.

As someone else who grew up in west Michigan... I felt the same way for a long time. Until after the 2010 Michigan / Michigan State football game. The behavior of Sparty in Ann Arbor; our city was absolutely dispicable. I've never witnessed a group of antagonists so incredibly outnumbered trying so hard to goad the general population around them into a fight. If there weren't Wolverines to defend the couches, they would've been burning in the streets.

Ever since I've regarded Spartan Fans as chronically afflicted with an inferiority complex that defies all reason, logic, or decency. Since I haven't gone to the horseshoe or the barn down in Columbus, I've yet to experience a more obnoxious fanbase firsthand. The only Michigan-Ohio State game I attended was 2011, and it was beautiful. SIDE NOTE: I had student season tickets in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012. I attended several games in 2009 since my roommate had tickets and didn't care enough to go to several of the games, but I decided against season tickets after the frusteration of the 2008 season...

On one hand, Sparty can be a useful tool in beating Ohio State or other bigger rivals. (For years, Michigan would beat Notre Dame and give Sparty a chance to knock out the Irish, and Sparty would blow it.)

On the other hand, three years of having bandwagon Sparty fans call our QB reprehensible racial slurs does get old.

----

And, speaking as someone who goes to a lot of Michigan games, watching a game in East Lansing is somewhat bizarre. Way more drunkenness, far more profanities, and stuff that must have seemed cool in 1995. (Despite all the renovations to their facilities, their Jock Jams, Volume 3 CD managed to stick around.) Just a weird timewarp of a place.

When I came of age, Duffy and MSU owned the state. Only later did we learn that was a ¨paid for¨ period, as most of state's are. Here I was a young man, h.s. football player and MSU involved in that year's ¨Game of the Century¨ with ND. They had it all. Bubbah, Clint, Johnson, Gene Washington and the backer, George Webster, as the defensive player of the decade, as voted by the AP writers at that time. I was 15 and I shoud have naturally gravitated toward the Spartans. Count em, that is 5 AAs on one team. I was not sold even though I thought they got jobbed after the tie with ND. ND gets shit just because catholicism is and always has been the largest Christian based faith in America.

However, just a few years later, with really not much interest I tunedd into another black and white televised game in '69 featuring the ¨Greatest team of the century¨ vs. a 8 win Michigan team, lead by a first year coach with a name that was difficult to pronounce. That day I say a team with a helmet insigna that just touched me and a new head coach who had them readyt o take on the world destroy that so called ¨Greatest team ever assembled,¨ and I was hooked. MSU should have had me two years earlier, but could not do so, but when I saw this team go up against a team they supposedly didn't belong on the field with and basically demolish them, coupled with these ¨crazy helmets,¨I was hooked.

Then when deciding on where I wanted to to to college, after h.s., and realizing the difference between the two schools and one that had a history of NCAA malfeasance as opposed to the winningest team of alll time, while still maintaining a standard so far above the other, there was really no decision. November, ´69 was the starting point. Research did the rest.

I can't understand why you would want to. These people up here get all excited about the "little brother" thing but if you see how they acted after the RichRod era, you would quickly see the little brother phrase quickly has merit.

In northern Michigan, farther away from the "battle zone," this same debate started at work! I listened for as long as I could stand it, then I had to weigh in. You've got to choose one or the other, I said! If you say you're a fan of both, then you're a fan of NEITHER! GO BLUE!

So... If you're a fan of both...Where do you want Devin Booker to go to school? Or Drake Harris? I mean, you must acKnowledge that success for one school occurs at the detriment of the other. I suppose it is possible to be a fan of both if A. You just don't give it a lot of thought OR B. You just aren't very bright.

My siblings and mother are all Sparties and my dad is neutral, so he roots for both. He actually hates going to the M/MSU games because with us he winds up feeling so conflicted. He lives in New England, so he can get away with it without much hassle.

I don't think a true "fan" really chooses who they root for. I never woke up one day and said "I think I will be a michigan fan." I was exposed to it as a child and have loved Michigan my whole life. I have also hated our rivals with a passion in the same way. Never by choice. If someone finds themselves loving both schools then maybe that is just how they are. So if you find yourself consciously choosing a team as your own, maybe you aren't really as big a fan as you think you are.

I can't really conceive of a true fan rooting for both teams. You like one or the other. This isn't like "steak or chicken?"

However, I know Michigan fans whose second favorite team is "whoever is playing MSU." Which means, they would root for Ohio or ND to win over MSU. These are fans who never want MSU to win at anything. Who would rather the SEC win 10 MNC than MSU win one. That's where I get off the bus. I will always be a Michigan fan. But if Michigan isn't involved, I'm a Big 10 fan first (so I'd generally prefer that MSU win their bowl games.) And I will more likely root for MSU than for Ohio, or even ND.

As regards schools, I generally agree that Michigan is better, but remember that in certain fields (animal science, agriculture, veterinary medicine,) MSU is either better or Michigan doesn't have that field as an option.

I consider myself a true die hard fan. My emotions are so inextricably bound up with the success of Michigan that I couldn't even relate to the person you described. In some sense maybe you can define them as a fan but qualitatively I don't think they really bear much similarity to what's going on in my head.

My brother is a Michigan Alum, and die-hard Michigan sports fan. However, as luck would have it, his son is now a freshman at MSU. As such, my brother attends MSU games with his son donning the green and white. I don't hold it against him. But I don't like it.

No a thousand times no. As Steven R said "this isn't beef or chicken". IMO this is carnivore or vegitarian. You can't be both at the same time.

If you are a true "fan" of MSU you do not like Michigan and vice versa. If you're a casual observer with no real vested interest in either team - sure you can like both. I'll give you an example of what I mean. If I moved to NYC or Boston I could "like" both the Yankees and the Red Sox cause I'm not from there and would have only a casual rooting interest in either team. But no way in holy hell could anybody born and raised in either city EVER say they were both a fan of New York and Boston at the same time. It just cannot happen.

I believe him and believe its possible to be a fan of both. I'm a die hard michigan fan and have always rooted for UofM over msu. However growing up, before msu ever had the ability to compete with us, I always rooted for them outside of the game against us. Like hart said, they're our little brothers, we want to see them do well, but never let them beat us. A lot of the reason why msu fans hate us so much is because we can find a way to root for them.

In a household without generational or attendence allegiances, i can see it. I live in the UP now and i imagine that there's a lot of Yoopers like that ... though there's a lot of Yoopers who love the Tigers, Wings, and Packers, so with a history of treasonous behavior maybe it's not a good anecdotal data point.

I hate State, and i didn't attend either school (didn't apply to MSU, was accepted and declined UM, twice). I do however come from a multi-generational UM family and spent my childhood living in Ypsi. My first UM game was against IU in '79 when i was not yet 6, so the die was probably cast before i had the rational ability to make my own decisions. On the other hand, there's never been any thought of changing those allegiances.

I grew up a fan of Michigan football and Michigan State basketball. My Mom went to MSU and my Dads entire side went to Michigan. I even rooted for MSU football and Michigan basketball when they were not playing eachother. As I grew older my allegiance to Michigan grew.

It was until college. which I went to neither, that I was so fed up with all of my Michigan State friends talking shit, I exclusively root for Michigan.

If you didn't go to either school but are a Michigan resident then your taxes are actually supporting both schools so in that sense I think it's fair to have a rooting interest in both as a representation of state pride.

For comparison sake, I remember back when three of the top college football teams were often the Florida schools. Those games weren't just local rivalries but the entire country was watching intently. I'm no Spartan but I would feel some pride if U of M and MSU were the top ranked teams in the country and Michigan was considered the center of the football universe. But having said that, it would be killer to lose a 1 vs. 2 matchup with the Spartans.